Wednesday 28 October 2009

I am not a photographer!

I am not a photographer. I have owned a camera of one kind or another since I was eight years old. It was given to me by my paternal grandfather who loved photography. His son, my dad, travelled the world and took lots of photos.

I was astonished as a teenager to find my boyfriend at the time didn’t own a camera so I can honestly say that I introduced WM to photography by buying him a camera when we were in our late teens. It was a Kodak Instamatic; remember those? You dropped the film in the back, stuck a flash cube on top [if needed] and away you went! Everyone had red eyes from the flash being too close to the lens!

Now, WM is into Gimp [similar to Photoshop, so I'm told] and owns an SLR digital camera as well as an SLR film camera and a really, truly underwater camera. And he collects cameras!

I did photography at TAFE as part of my fine arts course. Heck, I even got a distinction for art photography! Not that I'm boasting, I'm just trying to state my case. You'd think with my family background, my TAFE experience and living with a keen photographer, I'd take photos as a matter of course. But I don’t!

As I said, I am not a photographer. I don't even have a camera on my mobile phone. I specifically bought one without a camera!

I do have a nifty little digital camera. It takes very short videos [so I'm told] and does lots of interesting things but I rarely remember to take it out of the house. When I do take it out I forget to use it. Like the sock workshop last weekend - I took the camera but it never even got out of its case. It lay all day on the table with my samples, yarns, spare needles and sock books.

This "not being a photographer" has interfered with my blogging. I have things I want to say and projects that I’m working on but I forget to take photos until it’s dark outside. Even though words are my livelihood, I still believe that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. How many words would one need to describe how a project is going [or not]? One photo can say it all!

But I have none to show you! Nary a one! And that’s why I haven’t posted in over a week!

Monday 19 October 2009

of this and that and unravelling the mystery

warning - long photo-free post

Do you like my new-look blog? I found the sidebar made the place looked so untidy - it was almost depressing! And what better time for a bit of spring cleaning than the middle of spring? LOL

Last week, knowing that I had to return to both jobs this week [usually terms begin a week apart] I should have been preparing lessons. But what was I doing? Of course I was. A blog doesn't change by itself. First I had to find out how to make that table-link-thingy at the top there, then I had to write a whole lot of new posts and link them and then... well, I won't bore you with the whole pseudo-geeky story! Suffice to say I'm pretty happy with the new, uncluttered web-home!

Purple is my favourite colour but I'm thinking I might change the background to cream. Hmmm! I'll have think on it some more.

And, by the way, my lessons are all prepared! All sixteen hours of them - I may even have enough to take me into next week!

And the sock workshop? Well, we had about twenty attendees [I didn't actually count them]. We had some people knitting on 4 dpns, some on 5 dpns, some on two circulars and some on one - a challenge that was, I'm happy to say, successfully met due to the capable assistance of my friend D [who could knit and graft socks in her sleep] and the goodwill of the participants in helping each other.

Everyone seemed thrilled to have learnt a new cast-on [I know it as invisible cast on]. And those that mastered grafting were doubly pleased! And yes, most of the participants did finish the whole sock at the workshop.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! I love teaching/tutoring/facilitating and when it's related to my favourite hobby - what could be better?

"But what about the title of this post?", I hear you ask! Well folks, this may not come as a surprise to some, but back in June [on WM's birthday to be exact] I succumbed. I said I wouldn't but I finally caved in. Not because I didn't think it was a wonderful place - I knew it was. David Reidy [Sticks and String podcast] never stopped talking about when he got his invitation. He coerced, he cajoled, and still I stood my ground! It was me I didn't trust - too much time on the computer already, didn't need any new distractions!

But I gave in [I said that already, didn't I?] All because Kris - the Web Goddess - was coming to our Guild group to talk about the knitternet. We were asked to do it before she came and I finally caved in!

Oh, come on - read the title again! You can find me there as never2hot2knit but I warn you, I'm not there often! Too many distractions, too little time! *tee hee*

Friday 16 October 2009

Can a sock be knitted in the round on straight needles?

Tomorrow [Saturday] I will be the tutor at an all-day sock workshop at the Blue Mountains group of The Knitters' Guild of NSW. Fortunately, because my Kitchener stitch is still a bit wobbly, I will have an assistant tutor who can apparently graft in her sleep! In my opinion, D. should actually be teaching the workshop as she has much more experience in sock knitting than I do. I love education in all its forms but she doesn't like being "up front" so I'll tutor and she'll help out with the tricky bits!

At the workshop we will knit a child-size sock in 8ply [DK] yarn from the [invisibly cast on] cuff down using a flap heel and a grafted toe.

Not very exciting but at least we can get the sock knitted and hopefully grafted in the time allotted. My sample sock was knitted in two hours so I'm hoping that we'll be able to get through it in four hours [allowing for morning tea, lunch and the Guild meeting].

To this end, I decided to prove to myself [and the doubters] that it is possible to knit a sock on straight needles in the round. It took me five hours to knit a baby sock but I did it! The actual sock would have taken less than two hours but the heel was a real challenge and I had to try it at least five times!! No flap heel though; I tried and tried but couldn't make that work. In the end I went with an hourglass heel; at least that will give workshop participants an alternative!

Why would anyone want to knit a sock on straight needles? I really don't know; it's time consuming because every stitch has to be handled twice for every round! But I rose to the challenge. It can be done - here is the proof:

Thursday 15 October 2009

yarn acquisition

DD and I were discussing baby blankets. She mentioned how much she had loved the one I had knitted for my neighbour whose son was born in February.

It was knitted in Cleckheaton Fiddle De Dee cotton which is now a discontinued yarn. She really liked that blanket. It was soft and machine washable and dryable [which is very rare for cotton in my experience].

So, what's a mother [first time grandmother] to do? Look on Ebay of course. There have been several occasions where I have tried to find this particular yarn with no luck at all. But two weeks ago, I found some! In fact, I found quite a lot! And I bought a lot!! Here are the latest additions to my stash. Most of this is destined to become baby blankets. The rest will wait until I find out what it wants to be! The photos are copied from Ebay [thanks Rhonda and Amanda]. You will see more photos when the yarn is actually knitted!

Six balls of the same yarn as above. That's enough for a small blanket for pram or bassinet.


Six balls of mint:


Six balls of a pale lemon, pink and white variegated yarn:


20 balls of a pastel variegated yarn [including pink] - surely someone will have girl at some stage!


and 23 balls of lemon [a safe colour when mother2B doesn't know what her baby's sex will be]


I also bought ten balls of white but have no photo to show you. That's 71 balls altogether!! Can you tell I love this yarn!

In addition, I bought six balls of mauve Super Soft cotton


and ten balls of Sirdan Cotton Lustre in a lovely teal colour.


I already had ten balls of Spotlight 8ply cotton in blue [blanket in progress] and some balls of white cotton in both 4ply and 8ply so I think I have enough cotton to keep me going for a while.

Wednesday 14 October 2009

happy birthday T

Not that she reads my blog but she might one day and she'll know I was thinking of her! Besides it's not every day one turns

Happy birthday younger sister.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

why tension [gauge] is important

In the week after DD's wedding, WM and I had a lovely holiday at Bundeena. In the evenings I knitted. I made one solitary Waving Lace Sock.

I was very happy with the sock and it was a perfect fit so I soon cast on for the second sock. But...

The yarn on the second sock pooled.

I stopped knitting. I put the second sock in the knitting basket and it slowly made its way to the bottom of the basket. Finally, after several months, I admitted that I couldn't live with the pooling and ripped the sock out. But...

I had already sewed in the ends of the first sock [so much enthusiasm] and I had done such a good job that I couldn't unpick those sewn in ends! Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had about ten minutes to spare before I needed to leave for an appointment. I took that beautiful sock out into sun and unpicked the cast on edge. Now I could see the point in the colour repeats at which I had started and I cast on again for the second sock. I knitted and knitted and the yarn didn't pool. The sock was coming along beautifully. I turned the heel on the second day and on the third day I reached the toe [I was away on holidays at my parents' place]. But...

Something didn't seem quite right. I measured and looked and measured and looked some more. Then I laid the sock-in-progress on top of the finished sock. That didn't tell me anything so I laid the finished sock on top of the sock-in-progress. The second sock was about 1.5cm longer in the leg and definitely wider around the foot.

"That can't be," I thought. "I am knitting on the smallest needles I own [2.25mm] - how can it be so much bigger?" So...

I checked my tension/gauge over the stocking stitch at the toe and, dear readers, it was true. My gauge for the first sock was 10 stitches to the inch and the new sock was eight stitches to the inch! That equates to a seven inch diameter for the first sock and and nine inch diameter for the second sock! I had not tried on the second sock during its knitting. The weather had turned cold and I was wearing socks and shoes. I didn't want to take them off to try on the sock. I'm the same knitter using the same yarn on the same needles to the same pattern - of course it would be right! But...

It wasn't right of course. I had obviously been very stressed in the week after The Wedding to be knitting so tightly! So, both socks are in the knitting basket while I decide what to do? Should I buy some smaller needles and try to get the same gauge as perfect sock #1 or should I rip them both out and knit them both at the same time so that my gauge is the same for both socks?

The moral of the story, dear readers, is check your gauge. It is not always the same!!

Sunday 11 October 2009

the Aussie dollar is strong

...and I work hard so I can reward myself every now and then! Do you think this is enough reward?





Do we detect a theme here?

Then, I had to have this for the Moderne Baby Blanket and the Log Cabin Blanket and the bib and ...


This was 33% off


Finally, every sock knitter seems to want this one!


And WM got these - perhaps he hasn't been working hard enough for the big rewards! LOL


Thursday 8 October 2009

children's jumpers

Over the past few months I have knitted several child-size jumpers [sweaters] for charity. I have been practising and refining my knitting-in-the-round technique and designing some successes and some failures.

One of those failures, although I didn't realise it when I posted about it back in June, was a sweater-without-shoulders. Thanks C. for your honesty; you made me look at the jumper again and of course you were right. Having started from the top down I was reluctant to fix it but it was very obvious that it couldn't be worn in that state so, after some thinking time while the jumper lay in the naughty corner, I came up with a solution. I snipped one stitch just above the armhole and slowly, carefully and painstakingly took out all the stitches in that row. It took a couple of hours but I finally separated the yoke from the body. I then picked up all the stitches of the body, ripped out the yoke and proceeded to knit a new one paying carefully attention to EZ's numbers!

Here is the same jumper - version #2.


This jumper has a sister [also knitted top-down]. Here she is:


Her very plain raglan cousin in 5ply acrylic:


And her very fancy cousin:


who, of course, insists in me showing the detail!

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Beanies part 2

I was tired of the harsh lustrous acrylic I had been using for children's jumpers [sweaters]. Australian Country Spinners market it as baby yarn - eek! It won't be knitted by me for any of my grandchildren. It looks so pretty but it's so harsh to knit with because of that strand of lustrous acrylic. So, what better place to put harsh yarn than on the head but away from the skin. This pretty-to-look-at yarn cried out to be a beret. I love the look of berets but I wouldn't think they are very practical as a head-warmer! Nevertheless, I couldn't resist so a beret it had to be! It's the right size around my head but the top is a little large. It's probably not really appropriate for charity knitting either but I'm sure it will fit someone. I love the look of berets but I don't have the confidence to wear a hat as an accessory. I think it takes a certain kind of personality to pull it off and I'm not one of them - I'd be utterly self-conscious!


Somehow I have missed showing photos of two beanies I knitted in winter: the first has a self developed slip stitch pattern and the second is the end [hurrah] of that yarn I bought on special and never want to knit with again! Fortunately, it's no longer made so I won't be tempted to buy it because it's cheap!!




There were some more beanies knitted in August. All of them were knitted from Moda Vera "Spell" which is a acrylic/wool [75%/25%] blend. There were four of them but one photo is sufficient. One had a moss [seed] stitch band, the others are rib - one K1P1, the other two K2P2.


I liked these beanies but I felt the yarn wasn't shown to advantage so, in September, I cast on three times for an entrelac beanie because I thought the colours of the yarn would show up better. I was right but the first beanie was way too big - enormous in fact, and the second I decreased two quickly so that it was the right diameter but too short in the cap! The third one still didn't work so they were all frogged and a different design created. This one involved eight triangular shaped panels. Each panel was knitted then stitches picked up along the edges and the next triangle begun [an entrelac technique modified].


I like the twisted stitches between each triangular shaped panel. There is another similar beanie on the needles having its spring vacation in my drawer at work becasue I forogot my kntting in my eagerness to get out of there [and start my two week break].

Sunday 4 October 2009

WIPs, UFOs and LLPs.

At first I thought it was just me. That I was weird, unusual, different. After all, my mother, the one who taught me to knit, is a monogamous knitter. She doesn't have a stash of any great size [a few balls of acrylic tucked away for charity knitting and perhaps some baby yarn 'just in case']. Mum buys yarn with a specific project in mind and casts on for that project when the last one is finished - really finished, not just "knitting-finished".

But her wayward daughter? The one who went to Wangaratta and Bendigo in 2008 with her DD and came home with the back seat loaded to the windows with yarn. The one who has just spent some hard earned Aussie dollars on 50+ balls of Cleckheaton Fiddle De Dee cotton from two sellers on Ebay because she likes the yarn, there are two family babies on the way and the yarn is discontinued. The one who had to buy 10 archive boxes from that big office supply store to contain part of her stash [apart from the five drawers she already had plus a shelf full of yarn in bags]. Oh, yes, a strange daughter indeed - why couldn't she be more like her mother?

But then I discovered the world of bloggers. And I discovered that other knitters were not monogamous. And some of them have larger stashes than me [not to mention some who have penchants for expensive yarns]. I am not alone! I am not weird! I am not a freak - I am - wait for it, drum roll please - completely normal in the knittiverse!

And I've discovered something else. Knitters who are not monogamous [that's most of us, right?] have three kinds of projects. Yes, that's right - three kinds of projects. Not two like they would like us believe. Three!

First there are the WIPs ["works in progress" if you are a non-knitter and happen to have fallen into this blog by mistake, perhaps looking for something about alien spacecraft]. In my case, as of today that would be five socks [three finished in the last 24 hours and awaiting grafting, one on two circulars, one on dpns], a cotton baby blanket and a beanie which is spending the holidays at work because I forgot to bring my knitting home!

Then there are the UFOs - those projects that have stalled in some way but are still in mind - they will be finished, some day. They're not forgotten; just put aside for the moment. In my little neck of the knitting woods, that would be a Tomten waiting for a zipper, a blanket for Wrap With Love with a gazillion ends to be sewn in and a blanket made of hexagons which I started last summer in my crochet frenzy but have neglected in favour of textured knitted things in the last few months. Then there's a summer cardigan that was once a sleeveless top whose yarn is being recycled. Both of these last two would more correctly be called NWIPs [Neglected Works In Progress].

Or perhaps they are really LLPs and I don't want to admit it! They have, after all, been removed from my knitting corner and relocated to hidey-holes in my study.

So what is an LLP you ask? A fair question, my yarn-loving friend but shush, we have to whisper here. Most yarn crafters don't want to admit to their LLPs. They put them away in the bottom of drawers, in the back of cupboards or under the bed, and try to pretend they don't exist. But sometimes, in the still of the night, we hear them calling to us. They haunt our dreams. They frighten or amuse us when we come upon them unexpectedly. They are our Long Lost Projects. Once, full of enthusiasm, we cast on, joyfully anticipating that FO. Oh, how wonderful it would be when we wore it or gave it to another. But somewhere along the way, the joy disappeared and the WIP became a UFO. We didn't hide it, not yet, it sat in our knitting bag where we could see it or it waited in the naughty corner while we thought about a solution to its badness. It was a UFO and it would be finished one day, but not right now - we had moved on to the next wonderful WIP.

The UFO languished in the knitting bag/naughty corner gathering dust and emitting little squeaks of protest every now and then. But after a while, probably quite a long while, we got fed up with sight of that UFO in our knitting bags/naughty corners and we banished it to the back of the cupboard/bottom of the drawer/under the bed. What had started out with great promise, our wonderful WIP, had morphed from a slightly neglected UFO to an almost totally ignored LLP.

Some bloggers have chosen to come clean with their WIPS and get them finished. Some have chosen to take their UFOs from the bottom of the knitting bag and complete them. And other very brave bloggers have let their skeletons LLPS out of the closet and turned them back into WIPs and even FOs!

Are you brave enough to resurrect your LLPs? I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours!

Thursday 1 October 2009

beanies: the ultimate travelling companions!
Part 1

Well, socks are pretty good too. But... I'm not a fan of magic loop - ooh! ah! did I just write that? I knit socks on dpns so there's always the danger of losing one needle when I travel by public transport. Therefore sock knitting is usually confined to the car or the house.

Beanies, on the other hand, are lovely to knit on the train. They're quick, light and short so even with my briefcase/satchel on my lap I can still knit [socks, on the hand, get too long for this limited space]. Beanies also easily stretch around my 60cm Knitpicks Options once the band is knitted. And [I'll try to redeem myself here] I do use the magic loop for the band and to complete the top of the beanie! I have dpns in limited sizes [2.25, 3.25, 3.50 = US sizes 1, 3 and 4] but using Knitpicks Options means I have all the sizes of circular needles I'm ever likely to use.

So, having no doubt lost some readers along the way - those ardent supporters of circulars and magic looping - let me show you some of my beanie output for the three months of winter.

First there was the scrap yarn beanie that I knitted in the car on the way to mum's birthday surprise [after I finished seaming the sweater].


You may recognise these yarns as being left over from this sweater and this Tomten. WM's picture is more creative than mine [why didn't I think of that?] but you can't see the dark blue band.

Then, because I was tired of all that Baby Lustre I had been knitting [that extra shiny thread can make such a harsh difference], I knitted some beanies in oh-so-soft Tencel and acrylic.

And two of these count as textured knits [I didn't actually show any of my knitting in the final round up]! The first is in a pattern I know as Broken Rib. I have heard it called Moss Stitch Rib and Interrupted Rib too.


The second is a simple K1P1 rib. [Did I mention soft and warm?!]


And the third has a simple garter band and stocking stitch cap.


While I was showing DD the beanies, my SIL asked me what Tencel was made from and I wasn't sure I had the right answer. Upon researching, I was surprised to learn that Tencel is not a petro-chemical synthetic fibre: it's made from wood-pulp. Tencel is actually a registered trade name used by Lenzing Fibres for a yarn which is more accurately called lyocell [just as Nylon is Dupont's registered trade name for polyamide]. I bought this yarn for 99c a ball at a clearance sale at Spotlight many moons ago and can get nearly two beanies from one ball - you gotta admit, that's good value! I think I've already said that the yarn is amazingly soft and warm and the perfect antidote to lustrous acrylics.

Beanies are also good for using up odds and ends of yarn - this one has six different yarns in it!


And this one used up the last of the chocolate tencel/acrylic blend.


These last two plus the two "blue" versions below are July's output. All of them use up odds and ends.



Part 2 coming to this blog real soon!